IF I HAD TO START FROM 0 ON YOUTUBE, THIS IS WHAT I WOULD DO | Realistic Growth Strategy

if I had to start a YouTube channel from scratch with absolutely zero followers this would be my exact plan to build a platform that stands the test of time this is my third video in this series we've already covered your plan for Instagram and Tick Tock so go grab a pen and paper because you're going to want to follow this plan exactly to see the quickest and best results on YouTube as always timestamps will be in the description down below because I know how valuable your time is and you already know what you're here so

let's just get into it when you decide you're ready to start and grow your YouTube channel you're going to go through these four phases building leverage optimization gaining traction and expansion in that order and I'm currently coaching students who wanted to grow their YouTube channels and this is the exact structure that we are following when it comes to focusing on creators who want to make long-form content here in the YouTube space now I will say my disclaimer I am not saying that it's my way or the highway there are so many strategies out there that

you can follow to see success on YouTube this is simply just the strategy that I've discovered works really really well for me and I've seen it work really well for my students so I want to share it with you let's break down each of these four phases and how long my students and I spent in each phase phase one building leverage the first phase is all about creating a plan and strategy that won't fail won't fail it's about letting go of what you think you know about YouTube and leaning into learning new things and getting

yourself and your channel in a position where you have leverage to grow so this phase alone took about three to four weeks for me and my students to go through and if you're somebody who maybe you're not working a full-time job yeah you could probably get through it faster but if you're gonna take your time on any of the phases this is the one that you want to just like sit and soak in and just like milk all that you can out of it because here you're in phase one is like the Make It or

Break It You know if you have phase one down to a T and you've got it figured out the rest of the phases are going to Skyrocket your channel if you try to skip phase one you'll have to keep going back to phase one and you're like why isn't this working why isn't this so that's why we spend a little bit more time here so what are you gonna do here phase one week one you're gonna get clear on your strategy week two you're going to study your competitors and observe the platform and week three

you're going to start getting video ideas through SEO and content research let's talk about each of these week one getting clear on your strategy this is where you're going to Define your unique perspective and your audience you can think of perspective as also like your Niche like if you already have a topic in mind or Niche that you want to focus on that's going to be it so for me starting out my Niche was Instagram I want to talk all things Instagram but if you don't have a niche that's okay that's where we're going to

figure out your unique perspective that you bring to the table what makes you unique what's your unfair Advantage what are some things about you that might feel mundane to you but can be highlighted to everyone else so instead of focusing and honing in on a niche or a specific topic you can use your identity as your Niche my favorite example is a student if you're a college student how can you tie that in to all of your video Concepts if you want to do fashion maybe it's Amazon fashion favorites for broke college students if you

like home decor maybe it's how I decorated my dorm on a budget college student Edition you know how can you implement your identity within all of the video topics another example if you're somebody who's living in Atlanta maybe that's your unique perspective that's what you have to bring to the table so how much I spend in a week living in Atlanta right so it might feel super mundane to you and super casual like it's nothing special but it is a unique perspective that you have that maybe other people might not or that other people will

be able to relate to then what is even just as important or even maybe more important is defining your audience now the reason why this is so important for YouTube is because when I was deep diving into my YouTube research and trying to script a video on the algorithm YouTube literally says instead of becoming a master of the algorithm become a master of your audience so don't think about an algorithm for YouTube don't don't think about it don't do it think about who you're trying to reach if you know the type of people that you

want to attract study their behavior on YouTube what sort of videos would they like what sort of thumbnails would they like what video topics are they looking up right now if you can understand your audience inside and out the algorithm will follow week two you're going to do two things this week study your competitors and simply just be on the platform and observe it I mean let's get the obvious out of the way if you want to be a YouTube Creator it helps to get familiar with the platform as a YouTuber and not just as

like a viewer or consumer so observe what videos are on your home page what do the titles say what are the thumbnails what videos make you want to click on them when videos make you want to scroll past start paying attention to those things during this week you're also going to study competitors you're going to look at people in the same niche as you who recently grew their channels and by recent I mean the past three to four years and study what they're doing what's working what isn't working the reason I say recent accounts is

because sometimes you have people YouTubers like tati Westbrook or Shane Dawson right they grew back in the days so you wouldn't want to study their strategy because their strategy might have worked well seven years ago but isn't working right now you want to find profiles whose strategy is working right now in the now in the day and age era we're in and then study strategy so you can create yours off of that now what are you looking at there's going to be two things you look for you're going to look at their popular videos so

what videos helped them blow up and even of their recent 12 videos what would you say are viral for them all of these should give you topic ideas or video ideas that you can Implement for your own channel week three we're now going to start building up a list of video ideas through SEO and content research now again this video is what would I do if I had to start from zero okay what would I do and if I had to start from zero the best chance I have to build traction or momentum is by

making my videos easily discoverable for my target audience so yes we're gonna have to take our time in understanding YouTube SEO and how to use it to our advantage now should you only focus on SEO strategy forever for all time no but in the beginning as your channel is new and is picking up traction these are going to be the videos that get people's attention because they're searchable search friendly easy to find of course there are creators that are like unicorns and they have like a random video take off that wasn't surge friendly at all

but that is super duper rare to do and again if this was me and I had to start from zero I want to go with what I know works and I know ranking for SEO will get me discovered faster than trying to make this random one-off unicorn video go viral now if I'm starting from zero and I can only buy one tool to help me grow on YouTube it would be tubebuddy no not sponsored tubebuddy is perfect for beginner YouTubers because they have a deal or promotion where if you have under 1000 subscribers you can

get tubebuddy access for like three dollars a month or four dollars something ridiculous and it is so so worth it I used tubebuddy when I first started on YouTube I was like okay I'm gonna invest in a tool I've had under a thousand subscribers so I got tubebuddy for I think at the time it was like four dollars and fifty cents a month it might be cheaper now and I was like I'm gonna use this for my keyword research and I did and that tool is what helped me rank my videos on search results so

with tubebuddy what you can do is let's say you've made your list of video ideas and you've looked at competitors and you've looked at their video ideas you have your list you're gonna plug in specific words or video ideas into the search bar on YouTube so maybe your idea is how to make the perfect chocolate chip cookie you're gonna type that into YouTube press search and on the sidebar because you have tubebuddy in your Chrome extension you're going to see your current ranking for How likely you are to rank in that topic if it's low

Maybe that's not the best video for you to focus on so how can you Niche down and get more specific with the video tubebuddy has suggestions under there for other topics surrounding those keywords so keep clicking on those until you find one where that ranking goes up a little bit more you want something with high search volume and low competition that was just phase one and before jumping into phase two I have an exciting announcement a lot of you and I mean a lot of you have been asking me when I will release my YouTube

course and the answer to that is very soon and I mean like very soon next month very soon so if you're not already on the wait list let me ask you this what are you doing what are you doing I have a wait list link down below I'll leave it in the pinned comment so you can join the wait list and be the first one to know when my course will be available so if you're liking the structure of this video here then you're going to love the YouTube course that I'm creating now this YouTube

course will be released as part of my full content creator course the DSP model so the bsp model is my content creator course and bsp stands for build scale and profit which is my proven three-part framework teaching influencers and content creators how to build an unforgettable brand harness the power of organic social media and how to make money while doing it I've been working on this for over a year this course for over a year and I created the bsp model to be the One-Stop shop for creators like you so I want to make sure

you're on the waitlist because the doors will only be open for five days and then when they close you won't have access to the course until 2024. now if you're watching this video after my course has been released it's okay still get on the wait list because then anybody who gets on the waitlist you'll also be notified as soon as it's available again next year in 2024. okay we got three more phases to go I think I need to start picking up the pace a little bit phase two optimization we spend about three to four

weeks in optimization depending on the amount of free time that you have now I like creating these longer timelines because I feel like it's more realistic for somebody who has a crazy work schedule or maybe has kids but if you're like Millie we're five weeks in and I haven't even posted a piece of content yet I gotta tell ya if you're serious about being a YouTuber you got to be willing to play the long game if you'd rather start filming and posting with no strategy by all means go for it my friend I told you

at the beginning of this this is not my way or the highway so you do you boo boo but for me I found that people see so much more rapid success when they take this slow time in the beginning to figure out all the necessary steps of growth so let's carry on optimization this is all about implementing everything that you learned from phase one to optimize your videos for their best chances at magnetizing your target audience week four we're working on title and thumbnail research week five you're outlining or scripting your first four videos and

then week six we're talking about filming and editing that video okay week four now that you've done all of your content research or your SEO research we're actually going to craft the perfect title and brainstorm the thumbnail before you even film yep you got that right I plan my titles and thumbnails before I outline or film any of my YouTube videos I feel like this this helps carry a seamless story for the viewer week 5 outline slash scripting your first three to four videos I like to have three to four videos under my belt before

I start posting because then I know I'm going to be consistent once I post that first video I have two or three more to last me two to three more weeks so that it I have two to three more weeks to batch my next group of videos or outline and script and film so that's why I like to have three to four videos under my belt before I start posting week six is filming and editing when I film my videos usually the outline has a hook so the first thing I say is the hook it

gets your attention then intro is optional you can introduce yourself but don't make it longer than two sentences right you want to get into the point of the video within the first 30 seconds or else the viewer's gone you lost them they're out of here okay so then I jump into the body the meat of what we're going to be diving into and then throughout the body I have a few call to actions sprinkled in you know I have a little subscribe here check out my webinar and join the wait list comment below you know

I got a few call to actions sprinkled in and then of course the outro where I'll recommend somebody to go binge the next video or I'll ask them to subscribe right so that's kind of the breakdown of what my video looks like outlining and filming when I'm starting out I used my phone I used my phone to film my videos I really did and I filmed and edited all on my phone for the first few months honestly of being a YouTuber so start on your phone it's completely okay just get used to that action of

filming and get used to that action of editing a video and then when you have a little rhythm then you can like okay maybe it's time for me to upgrade my camera but I started with my phone which was like a few years ago phones nowadays are way better quality and audio so you're actually at an advantage you can use your advantage and then editing you can edit with any software that makes you feel comfortable some free ones are iMovie DaVinci Resolve if you want to invest in one I use Adobe Premiere Pro if you're

editing on your phone you have cap cut iMovie in shot video leap so it's called I don't know those are some options let's jump into phase three which is gaming traction here you're gonna spend maybe two to four weeks this is kind of where the weeks get a little muddy because it really just depends on you how you operate and the flow of your schedule week seven you will be posting and scheduling your content week eight you will repeat the process and start studying your analytics in week seven let's talk about posting and scheduling your

content when creating my posting schedule I'm gonna pick posting once a week because I just think that's a consistency that I can realistically keep up with for 90 days and then after 90 days I can reevaluate and see if that's something that's still working for me so if you're trying to figure out how often you should post ask yourself what's something that you know in your gut you can stick to it for 90 days it doesn't matter if it's once a week or if it's twice a month figure out what's something you can stick to

for 90 days after the 90 days when you've been consistent and you're not burnt out you can evaluate and say can I step it up or is this perfect for me or do I need to slow down even now when I'm actually posting my video I am focusing on those key words those juicy keywords that I've used in my title because I already did my SEO research and I'm repeating keywords also in my description and I'm also using keywords in the timestamp so in chapters I'm going to use keywords so it's search friendly searchable if

somebody were to go to Google and look up how to hang floating shelves if I have how to hang floating shelves on my chapters that video is going to show up on Google search results so I am putting all my keywords and all the juicy words that I think my audience is gonna use title description and time stamps now let's talk about tags because people say tags are not really important and let's talk about what they are on YouTube's website this is what they say about tags tags are descriptive keywords you can add to your

video to help viewers find your content your video's title thumbnail and description are more important pieces of metadata for your videos Discovery tags can be useful if the content of your video is commonly misspelled otherwise tags play a minimal role in your videos Discovery so they said they're helpful for like if there's common misspelling or mistakes but other than that they don't really do too much they aren't as useful for helping you be discovered so if you're going to do tags I say spend one to two minutes of doing some tagging plugging in tags you

could use tubebuddy for that so if you have tubebuddy it's really easy just click click click click click add a bunch of tags that are relevant to your video and you're good to go week eight is repeat heat and analytics so you want to just repeat everything from the SEO research to here basically once I have about 10 videos up on my Channel That's when I'm going to start studying analytics I'm going to see what videos performed the best which ones did not perform as well not discounting them completely because for me my first video

that went viral I think it didn't go viral until a hundred days after it was posted so you're not discounting them completely but you're just being curious about the current stats that you have and really leaning into the videos that seem to be performing well and adapting that into your future video content strategy before moving to phase four I want to ask you how do you like in this video is it helpful are you having a good time do you want to be best friends if you've learned anything new or you're feeling inspired to work

on your channel I'm going to ask for you to like this video because doing this simple action will help this video reach other creators like you who could maybe find it helpful or find Value in it so click that like button if you want to help other creators find this video phase four expansion this one doesn't have a timeline because it will occur naturally as your video grows it's not necessarily part of growth strategy but it's things that naturally occur as you grow your channel so I just want to touch on them very briefly if

we were to give them weeks let's say week nine shorts and reposting or repurposing content week 10 monetization week 11 hiring out in week 12 checking in if you started with posting long-form content in week nine you're gonna start looking into how can you make shorts from your long-form content how can you repurpose your long-form content to shorts or maybe other platforms Instagram rails Tick Tock week nine will be studying the best and most efficient way for you to repurpose your videos where you can work smarter and not harder with repurposing week 10 monitor now

that you have a channel that's growing how do you want to make money with it how do you want to bring in the big bucks is it brand collaborations do you want to sell a course do you want to do affiliate marketing what do you want to do how do you want to make money and start making those moves week 11 is hiring out or expanding a team I'm sure as you get your channel to grow and evolve you're gonna need a little bit of help and that's okay I need a lot of bit of

help so I have like a team of 10 people helping me but you don't need 10 people I'd start with one just one find figure out what task Burns you out or what task takes the most of your time and find somebody to delegate those actions to for me my first hire was video editors because I would spend too much time editing my videos I didn't have the best software for it my computer would keep freezing and it would take me like 13 hours to edit one video so I just needed somebody who had a

laptop that could handle it and it saved me so much time where I could focus on filming new videos and creating new content great place to go for that is Fiverr by the way and then week 12 is checking in how you feeling make sure you're doing check-ins once a month even once a week if you gotta how you feeling do you need a break if you do need a break take one and figure out a plan for coming back to YouTube how can you not reach that point of burnout but always doing that check

with yourself of how you're doing is pretty important now if you want more of an Insider on some secret shorts tips that I use to get more views on my shorts then watch this video next And subscribe so that you don't miss next week's video where we're going to be talking about productivity as a content creator thank you so much for watching I'll see you in the next one follow your joy bye